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Habitability Of Natural Satellites
The habitability of natural satellites is a measure of their potential to sustain life in favorable circumstances. Habitable environments do not necessarily harbor life. Natural satellite habitability is a new area that is significant to astrobiology for various reasons, the most important of which being that natural satellites are expected to outnumber planets by a large margin, and it is projected that habitability parameters will be comparable to those of planets. There are, nevertheless, significant environmental variables that affect moons as prospective alien life locations. The strongest candidates for natural satellite habitability are currently icy satellites such as those of Jupiter and Saturn— Europa and Enceladus respectively, although if life exists in either place, it would probably be confined to subsurface habitats. Historically, life on Earth was thought to be strictly a surface phenomenon, but recent studies have shown that up to half of Earth's biomas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar System
The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar System" and "solar system" structures in theinaming guidelines document. The name is commonly rendered in lower case ('solar system'), as, for example, in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' an''Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary''. is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority (99.86%) of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in the planet Jupiter. The four inner system planets— Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—are terrestrial planets, being composed primarily of rock and metal. The four giant planets of the outer system are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planetary Habitability
Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from another body, through a hypothetical process known as panspermia. Environments do not need to contain life to be considered habitable nor are accepted habitable zones (HZ) the only areas in which life might arise. As the existence of life beyond Earth is unknown, planetary habitability is largely an extrapolation of conditions on Earth and the characteristics of the Sun and Solar System which appear favorable to life's flourishing. Of particular interest are those factors that have sustained complex, multicellular organisms on Earth and not just simpler, unicellular creatures. Research and theory in this regard is a component of a number of natural sciences, such as astronomy, planetary science and the emerging discipline of astrobio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth Analog
An Earth analog, also called an Earth analogue, Earth twin, or second Earth, is a planet or moon with environmental conditions similar to those found on Earth. The term Earth-like planet is also used, but this term may refer to any terrestrial planet. The possibility is of particular interest to astrobiologists and astronomers under reasoning that the more similar a planet is to Earth, the more likely it is to be capable of sustaining complex extraterrestrial life. As such, it has long been speculated and the subject expressed in science, philosophy, science fiction and popular culture. Advocates of space colonization and space and survival have long sought an Earth analog for settlement. In the far future, humans might artificially produce an Earth analog by terraforming. Before the scientific search for and study of exoplanet, extrasolar planets, the possibility was argued through philosophy and science fiction. Philosophers have suggested that the size of the universe is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitable Zone
In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure.J. F. Kasting, D. P. Whitmire, R. T. Reynolds, Icarus 101, 108 (1993). The bounds of the CHZ are based on Earth's position in the Solar System and the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun. Due to the importance of liquid water to Earth's biosphere, the nature of the CHZ and the objects within it may be instrumental in determining the scope and distribution of planets capable of supporting Earth-like extraterrestrial life and intelligence. The habitable zone is also called the Goldilocks zone, a metaphor, allusion and antonomasia of the children's fairy tale of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", in which a little girl chooses from sets of three items, ignoring the ones that are too extreme (large or small, hot or cold, etc.), and settlin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas Planet
A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with "giant planet". However, in the 1990s, it became known that Uranus and Neptune are really a distinct class of giant planets, being composed mainly of heavier volatile substances (which are referred to as "ices"). For this reason, Uranus and Neptune are now often classified in the separate category of ice giants. Jupiter and Saturn consist mostly of hydrogen and helium, with heavier elements making up between 3 and 13 percent of their mass.The Interior of Jupiter, Guillot et al., in ''Jupiter: The Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere'', Bagenal et al., editors, Cambridge University Press, 2004 They are thought to consist of an outer layer of compressed molecular hydrogen surrounding a layer of liquid metall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter Mass
Jupiter mass, also called Jovian mass, is the unit of mass equal to the total mass of the planet Jupiter. This value may refer to the mass of the planet alone, or the mass of the entire Jovian system to include the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter is by far the most massive planet in the Solar System. It is approximately 2.5 times as massive as all of the other planets in the Solar System combined. Jupiter mass is a common unit of mass in astronomy that is used to indicate the masses of other similarly-sized objects, including the outer planets, extrasolar planets, and brown dwarfs, as this unit provides a convenient scale for comparison. Current best estimates The current best known value for the mass of Jupiter can be expressed as : :M_\mathrm=(1.89813 \pm 0.00019)\times10^ \text, which is about as massive as the sun (is about ): :M_\mathrm=\frac M_ \approx (9.547919 \pm 0.000002) \times10^ M_. Jupiter is 318 times as massive as Earth: :M_\mathrm = 3.1782838 \times 10^2 M_\oplus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monthly Notices Of The Royal Astronomical Society
''Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society'' (MNRAS) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in astronomy and astrophysics. It has been in continuous existence since 1827 and publishes letters and papers reporting original research in relevant fields. Despite the name, the journal is no longer monthly, nor does it carry the notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. History The first issue of MNRAS was published on 9 February 1827 as ''Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society of London'' and it has been in continuous publication ever since. It took its current name from the second volume, after the Astronomical Society of London became the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). Until 1960 it carried the monthly notices of the RAS, at which time these were transferred to the newly established '' Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society'' (1960–1996) and then to its successor journal ''Astronomy & Geophysics'' (since 1997). Until 1965, MNR ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exomoon
An exomoon or extrasolar moon is a natural satellite that orbits an exoplanet or other non-stellar extrasolar body. Exomoons are difficult to detect and confirm using current techniques, and to date there have been no confirmed exomoon detections. However, observations from missions such as ''Kepler'' have observed a number of candidates, in particular around Kepler-1625b, Kepler-1708b, and Kepler-1513b. Two potential exomoons that may orbit rogue planets have also been detected by microlensing. In September 2019, astronomers reported that the observed dimmings of Tabby's Star may have been produced by fragments resulting from the disruption of an orphaned exomoon. Some exomoons may be potential habitats for extraterrestrial life. Definition Although traditional usage implies moons orbit a planet, the discovery of brown dwarfs with planet-sized satellites blurs the distinction between planets and moons, due to the low mass of brown dwarfs. This confusion is resolved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiant Flux
In radiometry, radiant flux or radiant power is the radiant energy emitted, reflected, transmitted, or received per unit time, and spectral flux or spectral power is the radiant flux per unit frequency or wavelength, depending on whether the spectrum is taken as a function of frequency or of wavelength. The SI unit of radiant flux is the watt (W), one joule per second (), while that of spectral flux in frequency is the watt per hertz () and that of spectral flux in wavelength is the watt per metre ()—commonly the watt per nanometre (). Mathematical definitions Radiant flux Radiant flux, denoted Φe ('e' for "energetic", to avoid confusion with photometric quantities), is defined as \Phi_\mathrm = \frac :Q_\mathrm = \int_ \mathbf\cdot \hat\mathbf\, dA where *''t'' is the time; *''Q''e is the radiant energy flux of the field out of a closed surface \Sigma; *S is the Poynting vector, representing the current density of radiant energy; *n is the normal vector of a point on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tidal Forces
The tidal force is a gravitational effect that stretches a body along the line towards the center of mass of another body due to a gradient (difference in strength) in gravitational field from the other body; it is responsible for diverse phenomena, including tides, tidal locking, breaking apart of celestial bodies and formation of ring systems within the Roche limit, and in extreme cases, spaghettification of objects. It arises because the gravitational field exerted on one body by another is not constant across its parts: the nearest side is attracted more strongly than the farthest side. It is this difference that causes a body to get stretched. Thus, the tidal force is also known as the differential force, as well as a secondary effect of the gravitational field. In celestial mechanics, the expression ''tidal force'' can refer to a situation in which a body or material (for example, tidal water) is mainly under the gravitational influence of a second body (for example, the Eart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deimos (moon)
Deimos ( systematic designation: Mars II) is the smaller and outermost of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos. Of similar composition to C and D-type asteroids, Deimos has a mean radius of and takes 30.3 hours to orbit Mars. Deimos is from Mars, much farther than Mars's other moon, Phobos. It is named after Deimos, the Ancient Greek god and personification of dread and terror. Discovery and etymology Deimos was discovered by Asaph Hall III at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. on 12 August 1877, at about 07:48 UTC. Hall, who also discovered Phobos shortly afterwards, had been specifically searching for Martian moons at the time. The moon is named after Deimos, a figure representing dread in Greek mythology. The name was suggested by academic Henry Madan, who drew from Book XV of the ''Iliad'', where Ares (the Roman god Mars) summons Dread (Deimos) and Fear ( Phobos). Origin The origin of Mars's moons is unknown ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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